CHAPTER 23
ROMAN
Andrei calls me less than an hour after we leave the interrogation room, his voice clipping with an urgency that sets my teeth on edge.
"We just got the report on the redhead," he says. "Come take a look."
He does not sound rushed, but I can tell something is off, so I head straight for the study.
By the time I step inside, Andrei already has the folder spread open on the mahogany desk.
It is thick with documents including photos, old ID scans, and birth records.
Kirill is standing beside him with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting with an unreadable expression.
Andrei barely looks up at us and simply points a finger at the paper.
"We have all the basics," he says. "Name, birthdate, and immigration record. She has only been in Russia for a year. There are no listed siblings and no father, and her mother died recently, just two years back."
I flip through the pages, scanning the details of a life that seems painfully ordinary. She is a freelance attorney who graduated at the top of her class, possessing a completely clean record and a history of quiet, unassuming living. It is boring and standard.
Then Andrei pauses at the photo of her mother, and his brow furrows deep in concentration.
"Wait," he mutters while squinting at the grainy ID photo. "I know this face. She used to work here years ago. I am sure of it." He still has not looked at the name on the file. Kirill leans over, looking intrigued. "Who is she?"
"I don’t know," Andrei says as he flips back to the name on the file. "Elizaveta Antonova. Does that ring a bell?"
I shake my head. "No. Should it?"
Before Andrei can answer, the heavy oak door swings open behind us, and the guards posted outside step aside quickly with their heads bowed. "Sir," one of them announces. "Your father is here." Kirill and I both turn in surprise. "He is what?"
Radimir Miroslav walks into the room with his cane tapping rhythmically against the floor. His face is stern and you can see from his frown lines he lived a hard life. "What information do you have on the girl?" he asks immediately, bypassing all pleasantries.
Andrei straightens his spine and hands over the folder without a word. "Here is everything we could find, sir."
Dad takes the folder flipping it open to scan the first page of text before his eyes move to the photo.
And then he freezes. The cane slips from his grip and clatters loudly against the hardwood floor.
"What the…" Kirill moves toward him instinctively, but dad looks like the air has been sucked out of the room.
"How…" he whispers while staring at the photo as if he is seeing a ghost. "How is this possible? "
"Dad?" I ask as a sick feeling uncoils in my stomach. "What is going on? Who is she?"
Dad’s hand shakes violently as he points at the photo. "This… this is Elizaveta?" Andrei nods slowly. "Yes, sir. That is her mother. According to the records, she passed away two years ago. The girl is currently twenty-seven."
Dad’s eyes fill with tears, which is a sight so alien and impossible that I take a step back. His voice cracks, sounding raw and broken. "I need to see her. I need to see her right now." Kirill and I exchange confused looks. "Dad," Kirill says carefully. "Who is she?"
He looks up at us with a pale face, and tears stream unashamedly down his cheeks. "She is my daughter." The words hit like a sledgehammer to the chest. "What?" I choke out. "Your… daughter?" Kirill repeats with a hollow voice.
He nods as a sob catches in his throat. "Yes.
She is my daughter. Elizaveta used to come to the house because she was a gardener.
She tended to the flowers and the roses, and I fell in love with her.
" He wipes his eyes roughly with trembling hands.
"We had an affair, but my father was still alive then.
He would not allow me to be with her, so he forced me to marry your mother instead for political reasons and for the business. "
Kirill’s face goes white. "So… all this time…"
"I tried to find her," dad says, his voice desperate as he pleads with ghosts we cannot see. "After my father died, I tried to find her, but she was gone. She left without telling me anything. I didn’t know… I swear to God, I didn’t know she was pregnant."
He looks at us with terrifying agony in his eyes.
"You have a sister. A half-sister. And I just found out she exists.
" I feel like the ground has dropped out from under me.
A sister. The girl in the cell is the girl we drugged and terrified.
Kirill looks just as stunned, and his usual composure is shattered.
"Where is she?" he asks, franticly. "Where is my daughter? I need to see her. Please, take me to her." I swallow hard as acid rises in my throat. "She is in the interrogation room."
"Then take me there," he demands as he moves toward the door. "Now."
We rush down the corridor, but as we approach the interrogation wing, something feels wrong. I slow down because the hallway is too quiet. The guards that should have been posted at the door are gone.
"Where the hell are the guards?" I mutter. Kirill frowns, and his hand drifts to his waistband. "They were just here." But dad is already moving faster, ignoring the pain in his leg as his recovered cane taps urgently against the floor.
We reach the one-way mirror.
The second I look inside, my blood turns to ice.
There are five men in the room. One of them has iris pinned against the wall with his hands mauling her, while another has Tessa on the floor with her pants torn and her shirt ripped open at the collar. Both of them are fighting, sobbing, bruised, and terrified.
One of the men is unbuckling his belt. The room spins, and red clouds my vision.
Dad sees it too. His face twists in pure, unfiltered rage like a demon unleashed. "NO!" he roars, and the sound shakes the walls. I do not wait. I draw my gun and kick the door open, shattering the lock under my boot.
"GET THE FUCK OFF HER!" I fire a single round. The bullet tears through the neck of the man standing over Tessa, and he drops instantly, gurgling blood as he hits the floor. Kirill is right behind me. The second man reaches for his weapon, but Radimir’s shot rings out from behind us.
It is precise and lethal, hitting him right between the eyes.
He drops dead before he hits the ground.
The last three freeze, stunned by the sudden violence.
Kirill shoots one in the leg, making him scream and collapse.
I shoot another in the shoulder, and he drops to his knees while trembling.
The last one does not even try to run. He just falls to his knees with his hands raised, begging.
But dad is not done. He storms into the room with his cane raised high like a judgment gavel, and he brings it down hard across the face of the man kneeling nearest to Iris.
The crack echoes through the room like a gunshot, and blood sprays across the white walls. The man’s skull splits open, and he collapses while twitching. Dad hits him again and again. His face is twisted in fury, and tears stream down his cheeks as he pummels the man.
"You DARE touch my daughter?!" he roars, his voice breaking. "YOU DARE?!"
"Dad," Kirill says as he steps forward, though he keeps his gun trained on the others. "Dad, stop. He is done." But dad does not stop until the man’s face is unrecognizable meat and bone.
Finally, he drops the cane with his chest heaving, his hands covered in the blood of the man who touched his child.
I ignore the carnage and rush to Tessa. She is slumped on the ground, shaking violently, and her face is a mess of bruises with blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. Her shirt is torn, exposing her skin.
My heart stops. "Tessa." I drop to my knees and strip off my jacket, wrapping it around her trembling shoulders. "I am here. You are safe. I’ve got you." She looks up at me for a split second, her eyes glassy with shock and unable to focus. Then her body goes limp.
She faints in my arms. "Fuck, no, no, no," I mutter as I hold her tighter and check her pulse. Across the room, dad is kneeling beside Iris, his hands shaking as he pulls off his own coat and wraps it around her.
"My baby girl," he whispers, his voice breaking into a sob. "I am so sorry. I didn’t know… I never wanted this." But she is already unconscious, and her head lolls to the side. Kirill stands over the remaining men with his gun still raised and his expression murderous. "What do we do with them?"
"Keep them alive," I say, coldly. "I’ll deal with them later." Dad stands, cradling Iris in his arms like she is made of glass. His face is pale and his eyes are wet, but his jaw is set in stone.
"Get the doctor," he says quietly. "Now.
" I carry Tessa out of that room with my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs and rage boiling in my chest. Whoever let this happen is going to pay.
We carry them to separate guest rooms in the main house.
The family doctor is already waiting, and he moves quickly to check pulses, clean wounds, and hook them up to drips.
We carry them to separate guest rooms in the main house where the family doctor is already waiting to receive them. He moves quickly between the two beds to check pulses, clean their wounds, and hook them up to the monitors that beep rhythmically in the silence.
After what feels like an eternity, he steps back and wipes his hands on a towel, his expression grave and serious.
"Miss iris is stable," he reports, keeping his voice low. "She has severe bruising and is suffering from acute shock, but physically, she will recover with rest and time."
He pauses and turns his gaze toward the bed where Tessa lies motionless.
"The other girl, however, is in much worse shape," he says, and the words land like heavy stones in the quiet room. "She took the brunt of the assault, likely while trying to defend the other."
I feel a cold knot tighten in my stomach.
"She has two broken ribs and a hairline fracture to her skull," the doctor continues while adjusting the drip on Tessa’s arm.
"We need to monitor her intracranial pressure closely through the night because if the swelling worsens, I will have to take her into surgery immediately to relieve the pressure. "
The air leaves my lungs. Surgery. She was fighting them off, running her mouth, and being brave, and now she is lying here broken because we left them unprotected. "Do whatever you have to do," I say, my voice sounding rough and foreign to my own ears. "Just save her."
The doctor nods and steps back into the shadows to update his charts.
I sit in the heavy silence of Tessa’s room, my knuckles turning white as I grip the edge of the chair next to her bed, watching the shallow, pained rise and fall of her chest. She looks so small against the white sheets, and her face is a map of violence that I failed to prevent.
Dad is in the adjoining room, sitting beside the daughter he never knew he had, holding her hand like he is trying to anchor her soul to this world. Kirill stands in the doorway between the two rooms with his face dark and shadows clinging to him like a second skin.
"We have a sister," he says quietly, the words feeling strange and heavy in the air. I nod reality settling in my gut. "And she almost died," Kirill whispers, looking from Iris to Tessa. "And that girl… she took a beating trying to protect a Miroslav."
"She defended our blood when we were not there to do it," I say, the rage boiling up in my throat again. Dad appears in the doorway, and his eyes meet ours. The grief we saw earlier is gone, replaced entirely by a cold, calculated fury that promises death.
He does not speak. He nods once. He knows exactly what we are going to do next. They laid hands on our sister, and they broke the woman who fought to save her. And there is no redemption for that.